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Sat, 10 Jun 2017 13:22:50 +0000Sat, 10 Jun 2017 13:22:50 +0000Jekyll v3.4.3Your Leadership Training Starts Now<p><strong>Since our childhood, we regularly assess leadership. Sure, now a boss determines your daily tasks instead of your mom, but both sway your concept of leading. Many of us will one day manage a team or entire company, but feel unprepared when that moment comes. Consider what type of leader you want to be along the way and maybe it will happen faster than expected.</strong></p>
<p>Enable, coach, drive, inspire, motivate and delegate – we all heard these words at leadership or management training. Most agree that these define a successful leader, but the tools to achieve such badges are forged, not handed over. Learning to lead starts years before any formal training. The cycle of follower-to-leader is centuries, even millennia, old. However, not everyone hits the mark since becoming a leader is a mindset developed throughout your entire life.</p>
<p>We all experienced different types of leadership and their effect on our mindset, motivation and outlook. By tracking the habits and actions of our leaders alongside our emotions, we can determine what causes both positive and negative reactions. Your awareness around what works better as a report will heighten, which erases certain doubts when assuming a leadership position, yourself.</p>
<p>Leadership style depends on several factors including experience, team and company. When your time comes, it could be with a new company or employees from different generations. In this case, defining what you believe overtime and realising its shifts helps to be more flexible. Your opinion over leadership evolves throughout your career - what worked five years ago in your first company might not work in your current one. Leadership is as much about your beliefs as it is properly applying those beliefs.</p>
<p>We quickly forget how it feels to be managed, or mismanaged. Remembering these emotions will help you empathise with your reports when you assume leadership. I wrote these reactions and stories down. It surprised me how much I discarded from memory and how powerful a small note can be to reinvigorate a feeling. By considering how you want people to feel under you - whether it’s motivated, fulfilled, intimidated or secure – will drive your approach.</p>
<p>Let me tell you about the type of leader I want to become. My approach in three words would read: inclusive, effective and calm. Whether it’s a team activity or social gathering, making everyone feel welcome is a longstanding belief. Inclusive means letting people know why they might or might not be involved; giving credit where credit is due and creating an open atmosphere to share unedited ideas. An effective leader reads company culture to find its strengths and structure to get things done. It requires conviction, planning and consistency. Calm is the last on the list, but the most important. Most business situations are better handled with a clear mind. An overdose of emotion clouds judgement and leaves negative impressions with collaborators.</p>
<p>By identifying these traits, I already started working on becoming a leader, much like you can. On the path to learning and enforcing new methods, current behaviours will take time to unlearn. Whether it takes five weeks or five years to consistently demonstrate your leadership approach, a clear goal keeps us focused. It will not happen instantaneously, or without decisiveness. We have all experienced great and not-so-great leadership. Those great leaders we admire and hope to become committed to a leader mindset way before taking on their monumental position.</p>
Fri, 05 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000http://emilyvernon.com/blog/your-leadership-training-starts-now
http://emilyvernon.com/blog/your-leadership-training-starts-nowAligning Your Vision with a Brand's<p><strong>The most unspoken dilemma when working for a brand is rearranging your own vision. Before joining a company, you have an existing relationship with the brand. Much like getting acquainted with someone whose appearances caught your initial attention, the brand’s intention could diverge from your perception. Fully formulating these thoughts helps to prepare for future positions in leadership, as well as reconfigure your current approach.</strong></p>
<p>Throughout my career, I met numerous designers who joined a company after years of idolising a brand’s work. They could recite past product, key influencers and milestone moments as intuitively as their native alphabet. Such perceptions, which fuse personal history with the brand’s crafted image, led them to work there in the first place.</p>
<p>The opportunity to learn more about a brand you highly regard invigorates us in those initial months. Insider information, new people and company processes keeps us busy, not yet attentive to the variances between expectation and reality. When the dating period ends, expectation and reality meet up, blooming opinions as well as questions. It took me years to formulate an effective approach toward resolving this brand vision dilemma.</p>
<p>The vision or larger direction for a brand depends on numerous factors. Company history, corporate culture, market state, competitors, leadership style, department interests and investors join the long list of possible influencers. In a way, there is no “right” vision, much like there is no “right” type of art. A brand can go in numerous directions and remain successful. Everyone in the company carries a unique relationship with the brand and ideas where it should go. We need to be mindful and flexible with our assessments, as they can either help or hinder our progress.</p>
<p>We all want to help and offer suggestions for improvements. Conversations around where the brand should go overall and at a team level are healthy outlets. Certain areas and processes can be molded by your beliefs, while others might lie beyond your reach. If the entire vision of a brand does not align with your own, consider a couple of points. Does your vision address multiple aspects of the brand? Could it be executed within the corporate culture? How would you take others on the journey around your vision?</p>
<p>Asking these questions can help us identify three things. These include what could be done now about it; what can be learned for future positions of leadership; and if there is further experience or knowledge needed to execute a vision, no matter what the size. When the opportunity arises, you want to be ready. We are all leaders within our current position, even if you are an intern. Some of us lead from the top, others the middle and many at the ground level. At each of these perspectives, we are preparing for another degree of leadership, which is why working through your vision versus a brand’s at all points of your career is important.</p>
<p>Opinions signal processing current situations with past experiences and future expectancies. When joining a brand, understanding our opinions can reconcile what we believed a brand to be and what it is. The big question after working through this is if you can live with the differences. When committing to a relationship or buying an apartment, you also make such choices. It can feel more impactful when addressing your work environment due to the time invested at any job; long-term affiliation with the brand and increased complexities from corporate culture. Wherever you go throughout your career such questions will arise. If you let these learning experiences pass with the wind, the lessons will be hard learned later.</p>
Sat, 15 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000http://emilyvernon.com/blog/aligning-your-vision-with-a-brands
http://emilyvernon.com/blog/aligning-your-vision-with-a-brandsWhat it Means to Work for a Brand<p><strong>Pledging your time and talents to a brand influences your identity. It’s a joint undertaking as both you and the brand believe in the suitable match. The points of compatibility are much like the ones in a personal relationship, however more complex. A brand is a myth before a being. By recognising your place within a brand ecosystem, your personal purpose can be contextualised and optimised for you and the brand.</strong></p>
<p>Throughout my career I joined brands I believed in. Their image and product spoke to the beliefs and conclusions I made before receiving their interview invite. They had a perspective I wanted to understand further, as well as the people that were also attracted to this vision. It’s much like finding a group of friends and establishing your regular hangout, inside jokes and shared interests all at the same time. The meaning behind this accelerated relationship unfolds more as your time at a brand lengthens.</p>
<p>It took time before I could form meaning around working at a brand. A brand goes beyond being a company. If a company is a machine, then a brand is an animal. It carries an identity, myth and meaning in addition to its organisational structure. We chose to be a part of a brand for multiple reasons both practical and emotional. These reasons could include personal identity, professional progression, new experiences, financial situation, required location, former colleagues or offered benefits.</p>
<p>Whatever the reasons, several social contracts are signed with the set-up of your new email account – your.name@brand.com. You undertake the position of ambassador, citizen and stakeholder in addition to your professional title. It’s these three positions that hold more value and importance than your actual function.</p>
<p><strong>An Ambassador</strong><br />
When joining a brand, you represent the type of people that the brand supports. Your voice and actions are as much of a brand touchpoint as any marketing campaign. What you say to friends and family about the brand, for example, leaves a lasting impression due this stamp of approval. The associate with your brand holds social recognition and even identification, with questions like, “Where do you work?” common at any social gathering.</p>
<p><strong>A Citizen</strong><br />
The access badge or key to your brand’s building is a passport. It indicates that you belong in this organisation, much like a national document. Changing your allegiance from one brand to the next is never an easy decision. For some it can hold a similar dilemma as moving countries, even if the move is temporary. The product, process and message of the brand will be your new surroundings every day, which will affect your mindset and outlook. Choosing a brand should be done with purpose as you are now a citizen of a greater vision.</p>
<p><strong>A Stakeholder</strong><br />
A brand brings you into the mix because they see value in your experience and think it can further its vision. By applying your expertise daily to a brand’s mission, you become a stakeholder. When we think of brand stakeholders, owners and investors are obvious answers, but each employee is a stakeholder in a more abstract sense. The brand’s business is now your business, and it’s expected that you will deliver results. Advancing your career is as much about gaining new skills as it is proving those skills can be applied.</p>
<p>A brand will always be bigger and more complex than any one individual. It can span generations and affect ideologies outside of its market share. By gaining a perspective of your place within the organization, it helps you make better decisions for yourself and the brand you work for. So many times, it can feel like a brand becomes a part of your identity. And it does. When joining a brand, you are assuming the roles of ambassador, citizen and stakeholder. Though such positions can feel invisible or unmentioned, they greatly affect your identity and future relationship with any brand.</p>
Mon, 20 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000http://emilyvernon.com/blog/what-it-means-to-work-for-a-brand
http://emilyvernon.com/blog/what-it-means-to-work-for-a-brandThe Never-Ending Story of Defining Success<p><strong>Success is as unoriginal as other buzzwords of our time. Like passion, motivation or drive, success only carries meaning when put into context. Your context, my context, her context, his context – they all differ. It’s easy to think most of us want the same results from our career, and on similar timelines. The intertwined relationship between career, life and meaning makes every timeline acceptable.</strong></p>
<p>Pushing aside the opinions and social media broadcasts of your network’s career development would require one of two things. Either a <em>f– everyone else</em>’s attitude or understanding of why career timelines can take longer these days. After living in a couple of countries and meeting dozens from other cultures, I’ve come to see that success has many colours and, most importantly, various timelines.</p>
<p>A career, when unmasked of its occupational focus, speaks to the human need for progress. Through multiple forms of education and experience we aim to build the necessary skills to contribute and earn recognition. For many, <em>career</em> might not even be an appropriate term to describe your work. Today we’ll use Wikipedia’s meaning of a career as “an individual’s journey through learning, work and other aspects of life” to address its expanding definition. With more people examining their career alongside meaning and lifestyle, a career is not the answer, but a part of the process.</p>
<p>Much like a science experiment, there is a high degree of trial and error within a career. Some figure it out early on, like the members of Forbes’ <em>30 Under 30</em>, while others start what they label a true calling decades later. Well-known examples of the latter include Vivienne Westwood, Charles Darwin, Julia Child and Samuel Jackson. Your definition of a career becomes clearer through a series of experiments that either work to support or deconstruct your already held beliefs.</p>
<p>As you go about your career experiments, others will offer their advice and opinion. At times, you might feel discouraged that your reasoning is overlooked. Your friends or parents, for example, question your choice in education or move to another city. This is intensified by the fact that your one choice is a series of many other decisions, both to do and not to do something. When a respected individual disagrees with your one change, it can feel as if they are discrediting your entire value system.</p>
<p>Of course, this is not the case. However, if you don’t define your image of career success and their realistic timelines others will for you. I internalised this well-known idea in a backwards manner. After listening, processing and playing with the ideas of others around career progression, it felt as if I was wearing a coat two sizes too small. My dissatisfaction circled around my own uncertainties, which allowed outside opinions to puncture my own beliefs. Loved ones only demonstrated good intentions by offering their own experiences.</p>
<p>Until you build your own experiences, others will seem more valuable. As each of us engages with alternative concepts around “learning, work and other aspects of life” we create our own beliefs. My working definition of success is, for example, <em>synergising multiple aspects of creative industries to deliver newness, while building meaningful relationships.</em> As I live in one of the most beautiful and stimulating cities, having time to engage in side projects, educations and my community adds a greater meaning to my life. If you asked me for that statement ten years ago, it would diverge. I only concluded the value of relationships when I gained experience in a company, or the importance of your environment after moving abroad.</p>
<p>Success has a rolling deadline. Once you deciphered the ultimate definition, something will change in your circumstances. Putting on blinders to the outside world will not solve the need for your own analysis. By constantly reevaluating your beliefs around the expanded idea of success you will have the confidence to undertake new opportunities and challenges when they pop up.</p>
Fri, 03 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000http://emilyvernon.com/blog/Never-Ending-Story-of-Defining-Success
http://emilyvernon.com/blog/Never-Ending-Story-of-Defining-SuccessRecognising and Repairing Tribalism in Companies<p><strong>Company structures mimic society. Both promote greater visions, while humming along to today’s theories on leading and unifying individuals. Within companies we work in smaller teams that many of us consider family. However, our loyalty to our department can insulate us from other perspectives and priorities. By understanding the signals of tribalism within organisations, their unfavorable consequences can be mitigated by any employee.</strong></p>
<p>The term <em>tribe</em> will forever hover between a positive and negative meaning. Numerous authors cite the benefits of tribes in this context, while other caution their development. Loyalty, identity and community are all words associated with tribes, as much as division, uniformity and protection. With our good intentions to uphold our functional tribes comes disconnection from others. Accordingly, I define a tribe as a collective of individuals who identify more with their group than the larger organisation.</p>
<p>The formation of a tribe can signal unbalance or insufficiency within a company. When looking at tribes in other non-nation contexts such as politics or fashion, tribes suggest the need to safeguard or incubate an idea or methodology. The broader society can absorb tribes better than a more condensed organisation such as a company. Many companies want the bond between team members to be strong and the team’s purpose to hit emotion chords. Nonetheless, both should contribute, not deter from, the greater vision of the whole.</p>
<p>Such behaviour can lead to teams prioritising themselves over the greater organisation. Examples of this include teams operating separately on company-shared tasks; making decisions for the betterment of the team, not company; or discarding feedback from other teams. Clear divides such as these are valuable signals. Whether you are the CEO or design intern, there are three areas to begin investigating: reevaluate the shared company vision, examine your own preconceptions and get closer to other departments.</p>
<p><strong>Re-evaluate Shared Company Vision</strong><br />
A mission statement synchronises every employee. It is a goal that should balance practicality with inspiration. Twitter’s mission is, for example, “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers”. Everyone from the software developer to CEO understands how to make judgements for their immediate teams from this statement. If the vision is abstract or unclear, teams will create and live by their own. Having an open discussion and dissecting your company’s mission statement are the first places to start.</p>
<p><strong>Examining Your Own Preconceptions</strong><br />
Since day one, each of us began constructing and testing our concepts on life. These ideas, ranging from how to deal with change to conversing with new colleagues, evolved from our own experiences and others teachings. Many of us hold these close to our identity, as it affects how we interact with and evaluate reality. It is never easy to separate our beliefs from our conclusions; however, it is a valuable skill in a business setting. By breaking down our preconceptions we can identify where our perspective points and how to expand its focus.</p>
<p><strong>Get Closer to Other Departments</strong><br />
Bridging gaps, as the statement suggests, involves building connections. This can be done both through office layout and personal relationships. The office environment should promote unique areas per each team’s needs, while considering the proximity between departments. This ensures teams will stay physically connected. In addition to the structural, our seemingly normal friendships with colleagues outside of our teams carry a profound significance. By cultivating relationships with individuals in various departments we are expanding our understanding and empathy.</p>
<p>Tribalism is possible at every company, as with change and growth comes new circumstances. The cautionary signs are helpful for any employee, marking a need to reevaluate from multiple vantage points - high, low and at eye level. If your personal objective is to improve where you work and the people you work with, then take a moment to consider the relationship amongst the teams in your company. The reach of your individual efforts multiples with every colleague you inspire.</p>
Mon, 16 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000http://emilyvernon.com/blog/recognising-and-repairing-tribalism-in-companies
http://emilyvernon.com/blog/recognising-and-repairing-tribalism-in-companiesFor Anyone (and I mean anyone) Who Wants to Try a Hackathon<p><strong>Hack…a…thon. Yes, you read that correctly - nothing in there suggests either footwear design or trend analysis. I ended up in this project development tech event to learn more about the industry through active participation. Though I enjoy the comforts of understanding a process or its people, my decision to go against my securities supplied irreplaceable lessons over my abilities and their flexibility.</strong></p>
<p>Some of you might know what a hackathon is, while others will not. At a hackathon, developers, designers, project managers and experts get together for a continuous project building challenge. They can last for several hours to several days in either a private or all-welcome setting. In the footwear world, these get-togethers are not common – or even exist to my knowledge. The tech industry is more keen to building community through such events than legacy industries.</p>
<p>The Dutch Open Hackathon in Rotterdam this year brought together these groups with Polite, Philips, Schiphol, PostNL, Kamer van Koophandel and KLM to create new mobile applications with the APIs (application program interface) and technologies of these businesses. The goal of our 48-hour development period was to introduce new services and opportunities with working prototypes. The Dutch Open Hackathon started with a meet-and-greet and event introduction, moving quickly to concept pitches and team formation. After that, the figurative starting gun fired and everyone got to work.</p>
<p>Now, many of you might not even sign up for a Hackathon because you think – <em>Well, what would I do there?</em> I know because that is what I thought too. With experience around throwing myself into unfamiliar situations, I knew it would end positively. My wonderings at the time focused on how I would maneuver a world that operates under standards different from my current industry. Without any more blah, blah, here are a footwear designer’s learnings from my first Hackathon.</p>
<p><strong>Great concepts can be developed very, very quickly</strong></p>
<p>When joining a larger company, it seems like ideas can take years to be accepted and then executed. Your expectations slow down as meeting after meeting get scheduled to review a single pitch. Participating in a Hackathon reminded me that great ideas can get prototyped and advanced quickly. Within only 48 hours, in our case, timelines allowed us to think a concept through without doubt overshadowing the project. With no time to overthink, only time to execute, the process was intuitive and intense.</p>
<p><strong>Your skills are more flexible than you think</strong></p>
<p>I can say with 99% certainty I was the only footwear designer at this Hackathon. Nevertheless, I knew my skills could contribute to a project including concepting, presenting, collaborating, video editing and designing. Even though this challenge differed from my daily tasks, the programs I learned on the job could help. In the end, everything came together even though during the Hackathon I learned Xcode on the run and edited a video in two hours. The experience inspired me to learn more about UX design and reassess the design lessons I learned from footwear in another medium.</p>
<p><strong>Tech knows community building</strong></p>
<p>Footwear companies have their norms. Like meeting someone from another country for the first time, I was enthralled by the distinctive approaches in tech. My own industry culture varies from tech, where I feel both could learn from each other. Hackathons display tech’s overall attitude toward innovation, engagement, risk-taking and most importantly, community building. Hackathons could be used in footwear or apparel to achieve similar benefits. Footwear seems like an exclusive industry, where a Designathon (working name) could open our field to new possibilities.</p>
<p>When leaving my first hackathon, I felt a sense of accomplishment. This cultivated not from creating a product on short timelines, but reminding myself that discomfort resolves in better-than-expected results. Participating in such an event jumpstarted my perception on productivity and community. Perhaps my team could treat every Monday like a hackathon. By solving one large challenge in a day, our focus could be optimised and harder projects made more approachable. Whether you’re in the tech industry or not, try a hackathon once in your life to see if it’s teachings could apply to your own industry.</p>
Wed, 21 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000http://emilyvernon.com/blog/for-anyone-who-wants-to-try-a-hackathon
http://emilyvernon.com/blog/for-anyone-who-wants-to-try-a-hackathonEstablishing a Collective Trend Process<p><strong>For the last three years, I led our trend research in Europe. Many might see trend analysis as either acting like a fashion oracle or collecting pretty images. Well, it is some of that. The process I established transformed a trend analyst into an editor. By gathering content across three functions, our in-house trend analysis focused on making sense of apparel, footwear and consumers from multiple perspectives.</strong></p>
<p>Trend forecasting is in a strange place these days. In a fashion world where we are all jaded by lookalikes, fast-fashion and all-access, you can’t keep up with everything. Trends can come from anywhere, if a group gets behind an idea to drive it forward. However, by recognising what is resonating with a consumer group now and possibly in the future, you can identify easy opportunities for product concepts while inspiring new ideas.</p>
<p>I liken trend analysis to predicting the weather by clouds and wind observations. When you learn about the latter in something like sailing, distinct patterns and categorisations arise. If a cirrus clouds is visible on your watch, for example, you know high pressure centers, thunderstorm cells or storm centers are approaching. Same with trends. Where you see something interesting going on from certain individuals, publications or resources, you know other people are also noticing it.</p>
<p>Deciphering this collective vision is exactly why our team goes to a group process over a one-man operation. Each of us has varying backgrounds, perceptions and preferences. As much as we want to separate our personal tastes from professional work, it still surfaces. By applying a group collection process, we can discuss and edit to a better overview of trends now, as well as forecast for what could come. We bypass getting caught in one’s opinions or judgements by going more Wikipedia than encyclopedia.</p>
<p>It’s easy to set up, but requires constant follow up. Each of our team members across design, development and project management contributes to shared online platforms. One is a blog and the other is an Instagram feed. Here is where our discussions and trend collection starts. In this process, one person heads the effort, acting more like an editor or project manager. They set up the platforms, run meetings and review the information. Once it gets rolling, posting to a collective site or feed becomes second nature for everyone and our trend content grows larger and larger every day.</p>
<p>Doing trend analysis is not necessarily that difficult. We all make observation about the world around us and comment on how things look different. The challenge is more how to make sense of it for other people. The way I communicate trends to one function is different to how I might communicate the same idea to another. As an editor, it’s about collecting that information and sculpting it into something understandable for an audience. It all starts, however, with the information we gathered together. As a leader of such a process I stress the work is collective, even though I might be messenger.</p>
<p>There is a larger benefit to a shared trend process. Posting what you find interesting for the greater team is also a way to make others mindful of your vision. We can openly share ideas in a safe space. There is no <em>being wrong</em>. Many times, we adapt an image from our blog or Instagram feed as a start to a new project. Whether it’s colour inspiration from an apartment or graphic on a purse, anything can jumpstart a concept. If that jumpstart is seen and discussed by the entire team, everyone feels more included and invested in the project.</p>
<p>Getting ideas to the market is much more difficult than the best man wins. It involves a team and collective conviction. Our shared trend process invigorates team members with the genuine sense that they are contributing to a vision. By taking advantage of your talent to assess what is going on, you’ll be able to forecast trends while unifying a team around new projects. Trend analysis is not about being the best or right, it’s about editing out unnecessary information to find the next path.</p>
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000http://emilyvernon.com/blog/establishing-a-collective-trend-process
http://emilyvernon.com/blog/establishing-a-collective-trend-processPresentation? Get Used to It<p><strong>I’m here to unravel and reboot your perception of presenting. By combining some tough love with yes-you-can motivation, we’ll tame your doubts and train your nerves. Presenting is going to happen - it’s a fact you need to cozy up with. Instead of going through a casual panic each time a presentation comes your direction, we’ll dress up in our discomforts to understand their temperament.</strong></p>
<p>Recently, I presented to room of over one hundred designers. This does not demonstrate a challenge in terms of audience size, but audience accessibility. They know their stuff. After stepping off of the podium, I awaited feedback from my peers. Upon receiving more recognition for my delivery than content, I realised what I considered a learnable skill resembled an unattainable talent for many.</p>
<p>First of all, I get nervous before presentations just like you. My thoughts pre-occupy with my presentation material and doubts ping pong between my ears. Where we might differ is the way this nervousness gets filtered and directed as I take ahold of the situation. The reaction described above gets channeled as quickly as possible to defeat its negative effects.</p>
<p>You practiced this before, but perhaps in another scenario. Presenting in front of a group requires the same mental preparation as getting out on stage, the play field or starting line. If you participated in any extracurricular activities, you experienced the nervousness involved with presenting. I’m sure you developed techniques either learned, researched or taught to handle yourself in such situations. It’s time to apply that learning to this task.</p>
<p>Here’s the reality: presenting is here to stay. Next week, month or year, you’ll have another presentation, and then another. Preparing for your next presentation starts earlier than the night before. My success in that designer audience situation was not luck, but years bundled in practice, classes and reading. I treat presenting like anything else - something that can be learned, developed and managed.</p>
<p>When learning techniques around presenting, you will come across techniques around preparation, style, delivery, tools and content. Buzzy phrases like key message, keep it simple, know your audience and don’t read are good teachings you’ll come across. However, my main recommendation for becoming a better presenter is developing your self-talk.</p>
<p>Concerns fly through our heads like a flock of agitated birds before a presentation. We worry that our mind will reboot and erase our entire memory. We believe we did not prepare well enough, long enough or hard enough. We pressurise this single moment to the same emotional density as getting married. And we do this every time. Presentations will keep coming like battles in a war. It’s not about winning this single presentation, but winning in presenting.</p>
<p>Before and even during a presentation I turn nervousness into excitement. By replacing those doubts above with positive, forward-looking viewpoints, the task looks smaller and more manageable. Here are some of the statements I run through:</p>
<ol>
<li>This will prepare me for a larger audience</li>
<li>Let’s see how my ideas test out</li>
<li>I want to inspire those who fear presenting</li>
<li>There are no mistakes, only solos</li>
</ol>
<p>It’s a case of managing doubts over erasing them. Thoughts of memory reboots and inadequate preparation still exist. Instead of concentrating on their absolute removal, I focus on these higher level statements. Thought prioritization like this diminishes concerns by not feeding them with attention. It’s a continuous conversation - as my development in presenting advances, so will my techniques in self-talk.</p>
<p>Presenting happens. As you learned more about yourself in trying situations like performing, debating or competing, you need to do the same here. Start by viewing each opportunity to present as a level up to your experience. Go from there and explore techniques to focus on the greater prospects, not toe-biting nerves. By putting your doubt in the shadows, our world could benefit from your ideas.</p>
Wed, 16 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000http://emilyvernon.com/blog/presentation-get-used-to-it
http://emilyvernon.com/blog/presentation-get-used-to-itHow to Talk with Baby Boomer Parents About Success<p><strong>Who else to ask about the wild, wild workforce than your parents. You’re old enough to understand the value of their advice and keen enough to filter it through your own perspective. A road block will materialise at some point, however, one so immovable it must be bigger than just you and your parents. Welcome to the misaligned definitions of success between you and previous generations.</strong></p>
<p>At this moment, three generations dominate the workforce: Baby Boomers, age 56-71; Generation X, age 36-55; and Millennials, age 21-35. Each grew up with distinctive political and social circumstances, technologies, degrees of globalization and learnings from previous generations. These in turn affected that generation’s motivations, views toward work-life balance, career goals and of course, definitions of success. The following analysis will be American-skewed, but can serve as an example for your own nationality.</p>
<p>A generational spread like the one above might mean, as in my case, that your entire family spans over all three. If my parents are reading this, they should know talking about career trajectories is easy in one regard, but difficult in another. As varying species of trees can thrive off the same nutrition and sunlight, my family members share similar beliefs, but walk divergent lanes. At first, I considered talking with my parents about <em>my</em> beliefs behind success, realising that without understanding theirs, it would become a teenager-like conversation.</p>
<p>Take a look at your family’s generational mix. In my family, for example, we have Baby Boomer parents, a pretty much Generation X brother and Millennial me. We all value each other’s perspective, but understand that attitudes on career and life success vary. This variation results in tangible lifestyle differences, which our family share and discuss. It wasn’t until recently I was able to connect these distinctions to generational gaps.</p>
<p>The Baby Boomers’ perspective, or my parents’, took lessons from their turbulent atmosphere. This generation grew up during the Civil Right Movement, Space Race, sexual revolution, the Beatles and rise of computing. They went through university as non-conformists to then transform into seeking-security employees in the workplace. Success is achieved, according to Baby Boomers, through a strong work ethic and competitive environment. Climbing the corporate ladder at the right company exemplifies an acceptable career path. These factors led to high divorce rates, pension insecurity and health issues that would sway the next two generations.</p>
<p>While Baby Boomers might read Dilbert in the newspaper for their work-related humor, Generation X watched Office Space as a Blockbuster rental. This generation saw the world formed by events such as early PC and mobile technologies, divided families, Cold War endings, Y2K and Michael Jackson. Their skepticism over the past generations’ values resulted in challenging authority and self-reliance. They are entrepreneurial, open to multi-career paths and direction-driven. Success for Generation X is gaining authority, maintaining a work-life balance and building skills.</p>
<p>Now comes my generation, or the Millennials. We watched news stories around 9/11, globalization, global warming, Iraq invasion and the internet. With the increased access to information and cultures, we are more diversity-focused, enthusiastic to contribute and always asking, “So, what’s next?” Moving from career to career is considered normal, a huge leap from Baby Boomers’ one path projections. Our definition of success is still taking form, but a meaningful career, global network, flexible work arrangement and visible impact are already becoming clear characteristics. Millennials share similarities with Generation X, but find Baby Boomers’ perspective ridged. So how do I talk with my Baby Boomer parents about success?</p>
<p>Upon researching this article, my surprised revolved around how much this model worked. I never considered myself a typical Millennial - I held contrary values to high school peers, attended an art/design college and moved countries in my early twenties. However, my impression growing up of previous generations, world-wide shifts and cultural revolutions solidified values that are now revealing themselves. It’s as if the sleeper agent of my childhood is just starting to execute their life’s mission.</p>
<p>At some point, your discussions around career development with either parents, or siblings, will reach an impediment. Your parents might say, “But you don’t have experience in that field” or ask “Is this a hasty decision?” It’s not fair to judge their perspective as “wrong”. Values of earlier generations were embedded decades before. Next time the subject of career or life success arises, I’ll take the discussion to a healthier place. If we acknowledge each other’s assessments, we can live in the same cultural forest. Separate species of thought can benefit from diversity, especially if that diversity results from generational gaps.</p>
Tue, 04 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000http://emilyvernon.com/blog/how-to-talk-with-baby-boomer-parents-about-success
http://emilyvernon.com/blog/how-to-talk-with-baby-boomer-parents-about-successBetter Writer Equals Better Designer<p><strong>“If choosing between two equally qualified designers,” one recruiter once said “I always went with the better writer.” For the word Olympians, bask in this good fortune. For everyone else, your starting line is here. Sacrificing 30 minutes from YouTube or Netflix for writing rings in benefits for your design sensibilities.</strong></p>
<p>Here’s a typical design scenario. You finish your presentation and the audience didn’t understand a thing. Your concept, which deserves more applause, only receives pensive looks. We all have been there, wishing the moment would disappear quicker than our monthly paychecks. After putting down the blame baton, you realise it came from fractures in your storytelling or reasoning. How disappointing…</p>
<p>Before your coffee gets cold or something online undermines your attention, let’s get straight to the point. Writing is an exercise in focus. Unlike a conversation or Q&amp;A, you have time to think it all through when writing. Erase, redo, edit, restructure and repeat, it’s all a part of the process. Writing trains your brain to organise concepts, developing depth and clarity after every draft. Your design presentations, for example, will shine with stronger storytelling and reasoning after exercising your word power through writing.</p>
<p>First there needs to be an idea before presenting your design solution. It could originate from a brainstorm, sketch session or conversation. However, we all have those moments where it’s late in the office and there’s no one else to consider or reflect on your concepts. When you’re left with a deck of cards and no other player, writing is the brainstorming version of solitaire. Whenever my mind is water-logged by unanchored concepts, grounding them in an outline or paragraph frees my thoughts.</p>
<p>How you state your ideas is just as important as what your ideas include. Great quotes don’t come from half-baked notes and memorable statements go beyond bullet points. I’ve seen brilliant ideas deflate under the wrong word choice, while common knowledge sparkles through novel expression. How you say something makes it stick or get suck. Color up your explanations with comparisons, contrasts and unexpected expressions to keep your audience wondering how the hell you got so clever.</p>
<p>At a loss for words is not just an expression. We can’t always be expected to generate wit or explanation on the spot. Studying others constructions and narratives helps to build your own. Picking up a book, reading online articles or splurging on a magazine for a plane ride are ways to get going. You’ll start admiring writing styles as much as you admire street style. Much like design, learn from other’s tricks to jumpstart your exploration into the craft.</p>
<p>It all sounds like a golden game, but where to get the practice? For any project, from design to writing, identify your main motivator. If it’s an audience, then write what you know by pitching an article to a blog or publication; if you’re looking for an outlet to explore, take on a short story. Whichever path you choose, realise it will take time. The benefits of your trials will be a trail of writings you can admire or laugh at later. </p>
<p>Writing is a skill that designers can use to improve presentations, brainstorming and storytelling to achieve full impact. Ideas are merely knots to untangle. You have the information - bending and twisting it shapes a straighter line of logic for others to follow. Your designs are amazing and it’s time to let others know.</p>
Fri, 16 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000http://emilyvernon.com/blog/better-writer-equals-better-designer
http://emilyvernon.com/blog/better-writer-equals-better-designer